India’s new labour policy - ‘Shram Shakti Niti’ - casts digital illusions in a religious packaging
By describing work as a “sacred and moral duty”, the policy seeks to introduce religious and scriptural conceptions to conceal and justify the extreme exploitation and deteriorating conditions of the working people.
Hussain Indorewala
Published on: 13 November 2025, 12:37 pm
THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT’S recently released draft labour policy, Shram Shakti Niti 2025 is a puzzling document. In one section, it claims that the policy derives its legitimacy and moral authority from the Constitution of India, and the rights and protections guaranteed by it. However, in the next section, it highlights the “Indic worldview” of labour — śrama — being “a sacred and moral duty” that sustains “social harmony, economic well-being, and collective prosperity”.
The document explains:
“...Shram Shakti Niti 2025 envisions the world of work as a moral compact between the State, industry, and workers—rooted in dharma (duty), fairness, and social harmony—thereby reaffirming India’s civilisational belief that the dignity of labour is inseparable from the dignity of life”
…
“Ancient texts such as the Manusmriti, Yajnavalkyasmriti, Naradasmriti, Sukraniti, and Arthashastra articulated this ethos through the concept of rajadharma, emphasising the sovereign’s duty to ensure justice, fair wages, and the protection of workers from exploitation. These early formulations embedded the moral basis of labour governance within India’s civilisational fabric, centuries before the rise of modern labour law”.
Unfortunately, the two world-views—the reconstituted “ancient ideals” and “modern labour law”—are irreconcilable, since in one the status of work is determined by tradition and scripture, while in the other it is negotiated through struggle; in one the worker exists to serve society, in the other she is entitled to the wealth she creates; in one power relations are hierarchical and eternal, in the other they are contestable and transformable; and in one the voice of the worker is suppressed in the name of social harmony, while the other recognises it as central to democracy and justice.
Unfortunately, the two world-views—the reconstituted “ancient ideals” and “modern labour law”—are irreconcilable.
The Shram Shakti Niti fails to recognise that modern labour law is based on a rejection of a duty-based view of work; instead it upholds the rights-based view. The policy is notable less for its proposals than for what it reveals: an attempt to recast India’s labour governance framework to sideline constitutional principles, international commitments, and the lived realities of working people. By describing work as a “sacred and moral duty”, the policy seeks to introduce religious and scriptural conceptions (that reinforce caste and gender based hierarchical division of labour) to conceal and justify the extreme exploitation and deteriorating conditions of the working people.
The illusion of technological empowerment
The policy aims to align the “timeless values” of our ancestors with the recent Labour Codes, in particular the Code on Wages, 2019 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (‘OSH Code’).
The overall claim of the policy is to address the “structural shifts” in India’s labour market — driven by “digitalisation, green transitions, and new employment forms such as gig and platform work”— by setting up a unified (digital) framework for “social protection, skilling, occupational safety, and technology-led governance”.
